GROTZ: Celebrations are fun, but Eagles need to watch their timing

Torrey Smith, right, and the Eagles celebrated earlier this season against the Cardinals with a mock home run in the end zone. The Birds’ celebrations have only become more intricate from there.
Matt Rourke — The Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA >> It’s tough to keep up with the Eagles’ celebrations this season which, for the most part, have been tasteful and fairly well executed.

Whether it’s electric slides, mass photo shoots or even that unoriginal bowling scene, there are just too many of them.

This is football, not America’s Got Talent. Does a team that commits 11 penalties and four turnovers, as the Eagles did last week, deserve to celebrate so much? An electric slide when you’re up 28 points in the fourth quarter? Might as well celebrate kneel-downs, too? Or better yet, keep trying to get into the end zone with the four-touchdown lead.

The NFL changed the rules to permit group celebrations this season, even allowing the football to be used as a prop, provided there’s no taunting. Doug Pederson has encouraged Eagles players to express themselves within the framework of the rules.

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“It’s a lot of fun,” Pederson said. “Listen, the guys are having fun doing it. They are having fun playing together. Obviously when you’re winning in this position, it is definitely fun and all that. I do have the concern, though, there is a 40-second clock that’s moving after touchdowns and scoring plays, so they have got to hurry up and get off the field. But they are enjoying each other right now. They enjoy coming to work every week. And this game is hard enough that when you score, you kind of want them to celebrate together and that’s a great thing.”

It’s not just scoring that brings out the Eagles’ group celebrations. They did the electric slide twice against the Bears after interceptions. One of the interceptions was reversed after a replay review. The celebration, of course, stood.

Footage of the electric slide and the bowling group celebrations, the latter choreographed by Alshon Jeffery, after a scoring reception, made Good Morning America, the show that doesn’t know what it wants to be, so it rolls with whatever is hot on Twitter.

Again, it’s not those specific celebrations, but rather too much group celebration. There’s a fine line between tasteful and taunting, and Pederson needs to figure that out before it becomes an issue. And it will become an issue if he does nothing. Nobody wants to be shown up. One man’s perception about what qualifies as rubbing it in can be totally different than another’s.

Pederson sure sounded conflicted when asked if he feared the current celebratory acts could be taken as a show of disrespect.

“Some of the things we’ve done, the picture taking, the baseball, the bowling, the electric slide, I don’t think they affect the team one way or the other,” Pederson said. “As long as they keep it clean that way, it’s fine.”

Better re-think that, Dougie.

Go ahead, laugh. Tell me that every team celebrates. Label this unabashed fan of the all-time, all-time best celebrator ever to play pro football, Billy “White Shoes” Johnson of P.M.C. Colleges, a celebration hater.

There’s a time and a place for the celebration, as White Shoes and a lot of the indivual players have shown. It’s not, in my humble opinion, when you’ve played sloppily yet still are steamrolling an outclassed team What does that show, anyway?

I get the express yourself thing. Remember the cult movie Office Space? Screen star Jennifer Anniston, the server at Chotchkies restaurant in that flick, flipped off the boss who was on her case to wear more than the required 15 pieces of flair. “This is me, expressing myself,” she says to the bozo. That wasn’t respectful, either.

The touchdown celebrations are nice. The Eagles put thought into theirs. But there’s only so many times you can do it as a group before it becomes cold and borderline heartless. When it flat-out wears on the opponent. The last thing the Eagles need is a Cam Newton situation, only on a group basis.

Newton celebrates first downs with his Superman act. Personally, it rocks. Would I want to see it with such regularity if I was the opponent? Heck, no. You’ve seen players knock the ball out of Newton’s hand trying to provoke him or his teammates into a reaction. Don’t try to tell me defenders aren’t looking to put an extra bit of hurt on Newton when they catch him.

Carson Wentz’s traditional first down signal doesn’t come across as vain or showy. It’s inspirational. Anyone else find it hard to believe Wentz ever would taunt an opponent?

There’s a saying in football that if you don’t want them to celebrate, don’t give them anything to celebrate. It’s not that easy because almost everything seems to get celebrated these days.

Celebrations are a new frontier for an Eagles team one win – or one Redskins tie or win over the Cowboys Thursday - from earning it’s first playoff berth since the 2013 season.